Kai
by Sheyrena Wyrsabane
Summary: Itachi/OC. Two lives are changed by a chance encounter.
1. Chapter 1

Kai

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

_Part 1_

The first time she goes for fresh tea, she doesn't say anything, but when she returns a few hours later and he's still sitting there she feels compelled to comment.

"Not too many folks come to a brothel to sit alone in the kitchen," she observes, remembering her teachings that 'this is a high-class establishment, not a brothel' and 'the customer is always right, so don't comment on his odd behavior' and not caring.

"Hn," he says.

She leaves.

Early the next morning, as "business" is finally settling down for the day, she plunks two cups of tea down and joins him at the table. He doesn't move or speak, but she can still tell that he's irritated with the intrusion. "Not into girls then?" she asks, ignoring the irritation.

He finally responds, with a strange, full body twitch that is just about the funniest thing she's ever seen.

"Just afraid of them then?" she presses, eager to see it again.

But he's regained his composure and doesn't respond. Eventually she sighs, finishes her tea and joins her sisters for some rest.

* * *

The next night the weird group is still there and she is again banished to the lower level, half-heartedly scrubbing the floor and bringing fresh tea when she calls for it. It occurs to her that having the man here in the kitchen makes all Mother's attempts to keep her out of sight somewhat moot, but she shrugs and decides she doesn't particularly care what the old bitch thinks.

"What are you doing here?"

She jumps, much to her embarrassment, as the statue breaks its three-hour silence.

"I work here," she replies tartly. "I think the better question would be why are _you_ here? Technically this area's off limits."

He gives her a look that says, quite clearly, that nowhere is off limits to someone like him, which she already knew anyway. Mother's place is more upscale than some of the others in town (or so she likes to think) and they get a lot of ninja with their 'ask no questions' and tendency to stab first and ask permission never. They pay well though.

"Mother found me," she says after a long silence. There's no reason to tell him this, but really, why the hell not? It's not like anyone else gives a fuck. "In a border village when I was little—four, I think. I don't really remember anymore. She thought I looked exotic and could tempt a daimyo someday, keep her in silk and sake for the rest of her life. So she keeps me down here doing chores and such until whatever machinations she has in place finally bear fruit."

He doesn't look the least bit sympathetic, which is fine because she doesn't want that anyway. He also doesn't answer _her_ question, and while she's grown to feel nothing but hate and contempt for men, she finds herself reluctantly curious.

But the silence is a comfortable one, so she doesn't press, and they sit there at the little table for hours and pretend not to hear the raucous debauchery upstairs.

"What's your name?" he asks.

She jumps again, glaring. Who the hell just resumes a conversation like that after hours of silence? He doesn't react in any way, but she thinks he's amused.

Maybe her pathetic story meant something to him after all, and maybe telling it meant something to her, because instead of the pretty syllables Mother gave her what comes out of her mouth belongs to an impoverished peasant girl who was eaten by a marauding she-demon at four and has been trapped in her filthy belly ever since. "Kai."

He makes a strangled sort of noise, but before she can ask him about it he disappears, faster than her eyes can follow.

She sighs and goes to bed.

* * *

Scrubbing the floors the next morning, Kai pays more attention to her sisters' gossip than she usually would, hoping to hear more about the man. She learns far more than she ever wanted to about his perverted traveling companions, but for all her trouble what it boils down to is they're weird and so is he. Whatever.

* * *

She's a bit surprised when he's there again the next night—he's obviously not the company type. But whatever his reasons, he's there so she joins him and resumes their mostly one-sided non-conversation.

"I'm getting a bit old now, so whatever her move is she'll have to make it soon." Kai's had time to get used to the idea of being sold like a fine patterned vase, and it doesn't bother her anymore. She's so busy thinking about how much it doesn't bother her she almost misses it when he actually responds.

"Old?" he asks, looking her. That normally makes her sick to her stomach, but his face is full of innocent curiosity, not lust, like he's a little kid or something.

"I'll be fifteen this year," she supplies, taking a long slurp of her tea and glorying in her lack of manners.

He looks surprised, which is the most emotion she's seen from him so far.

"Why, how old are you?" Even as she asks it, she takes a closer look and realizes that hey, he really doesn't look _that_ old under all that bored non-expression and voluminous cloak. She finds herself actually interested in his answer.

"Fifteen," he mutters, shifting a bit awkwardly before catching himself.

Well. Wasn't that interesting.

She makes small talk the rest of the night, which he completely ignores, but by the time the sun rises some of the tension finally leaves his shoulders.

* * *

The obscenely wealthy group is due to leave the next morning, and if there's one thing Kai's learned in this place it's to grab onto whatever gets you through the day with both hands. So when she sees him lurking in the same seat again that night, she doesn't hesitate.

"I was right before," she opens with, ignoring his lack of reaction. "Not about the gay thing, obviously. But you are hiding down here."

He blinks, managing to convey skepticism.

"I'm not _just_ a pretty face and a nice ass," she says, with enough bite to reveal more about her feelings on the matter than she's really comfortable sharing with him. For a moment she reconsiders, then shakes it off. Opportunities like this don't come along twice, and kami knows he won't be the one opening up.

"Look, kid—"

"I'm not a kid," he interrupts, and the air seems thicker somehow, dark with danger.

She ignores the ominous aura. Everybody dies sometime. And really, the headband was enough to show that he was a trained killer, and that's not what she was talking about and he genuinely doesn't seem to realize it.

"I mean about that stuff," she says, jerking her head toward the ceiling. One of her sisters obligingly chooses that moment to laugh, loud and shrill and fake. She doesn't miss his wince. "I've grown up here; everyone I know is a whore. Doesn't take any particular expertise to see you missed a lesson in all that training of yours."

He narrows his eyes.

"So…want to?"

He blinks.

"Fuck. Do you want to fuck?"

She's ridiculously gratified by his open-mouthed shock.

"What about that daimyo?" he asks, which means he was actually listening to her rambling.

She shrugs. "Mother'll be pissed, of course, but the plan was a long shot and I'd still bring in a lot of revenue, so she probably won't beat me too bad." Her voice comes out light and unconcerned: a product of her years of training. There's no hint in her voice or manner that this is the first decision she's made for herself since she was four and picking out a yukata.

Somehow, he picks up on it anyway.

But that's sort of okay, because she sees the way his eyes flick guiltily over her form before resuming their usual blankness. So he's fifteen in there somewhere after all.

And this, this she knows something about, so she glides to his chair and takes his hands, which are clenched into fists on the table. They both know there's nothing she could do to force him to move if he doesn't want to.

"I've got a place," she says.

And he follows.

* * *

She takes him to a linen closet, because even if no one else came into the kitchen these past few nights she doesn't want to risk it. For all her brave words, Mother might just kill her for this.

She tells herself she doesn't care.

She just wants to be free.

He follows passively to a futon she arranged in the corner, and for a few moments they just sit and look at each other.

She's all set to demand why he followed her here if he wasn't interested when she catches sight of his face. He looks on the verge of total panic.

He immediately blanks his expression when he notices her noticing, but it's too late, she's seen it.

He doesn't know what to do.

And that gives her the confidence she had this morning when she decided yes, she was really going to do this, throw away ten years of training and a comfortable future for a stranger whose name she doesn't even know.

Because it's her choice.

She crawls into his lap and pretends not to notice how tense he is, twining her arms around his neck and kissing him gently. After a few seconds he tentatively kisses back.

They kiss for a long time, and she notes that he never takes the initiative, seemingly content to respond to whatever she does. It relaxes some deep-seated tension within her she hadn't even realized was there.

She reaches for the clasps of his cloak.

"Do we have to…take our clothes off?" he asks, and her hands still.

Well, she doesn't really want to be naked either. This is something she's doing for herself, and she doesn't want to be vulnerable.

"Not all of them," she says truthfully, and settles for tracing the hard muscles of his shoulders and back over the bulky garment. She feels a brief pang of disappointment but dismisses it. It's not like she cares about him or anything.

She loosens her obi just enough for her yukata to gap, and she smirks a little at having his complete attention.

When it doesn't look like he intends to do anything but stare, she picks up one of his hands and puts in on her breast. He exhales sharply.

His fingerless glove is a little rough against her skin. It feels nice.

She is surprised.

It's a little awkward for a while, since he passively lets her move him but otherwise doesn't react, but she wraps her legs around his waist and presses her hips against his and lets the contact between their torsos give her the desired pressure on her bared breasts.

She's proud to say that his breath is coming in short, heavy pants and his eyes are a bit wild, but she's just surprised to find she's in much the same state.

Her unexpected enjoyment is enough for her to wonder if perhaps she is taking unfair advantage of him—he's pretty clueless, after all, and hasn't actually assented to this in any way, so she asks him how it feels.

The fact that he actually answers such a personal question is reassurance enough that he wants to be here. "Frustrating," he says, "and a bit painful." He sounds confused, since this doesn't exactly fit whatever locker room boasting comprises his knowledge of men and women.

She's tempted to check and see if he is even aware that they are not, in fact, having sex yet, but decides to err on the side of tact. There's no trace of the unfeeling statue about him now, and she thinks that just maybe he needs this encounter as much as she does.

So instead, she goes up on her knees, undoes his trousers, and sinks down slowly.

_This_ is more like what she was expecting: pain, discomfort, more pain. She grits her teeth and glances up to see that his face is slack with wonder. She's never seen a look like that before and is immediately distracted. She watches each minute twitch of his face as she forces her body to open more, and it's fascinating.

She takes a break when he's all the way in, trying to adjust to the decidedly strange and still painful sensation. Eventually she remembers that even if her practical experience is as limited as his, she's in charge here and it's her job to do…something. She tries a small rocking motion.

He makes a…sound…something low and deep that vibrates through her whole body. The world narrows to finding some way to produce that sound again.

She grasps his shoulders firmly, smiles sweetly, and moves.

To distract herself, she counts the different sounds he makes, and around thirteen she realizes that her discomfort has eased and she's starting to make some sounds of her own.

Her return to the here and now brings annoyance with his continued lack of any sort of response. She's feeling all sorts of unexpected and unwelcome things and she's frustrated that he's so completely closed his body's reactions, enjoyable though they were to watch, from his inner self.

So she plants her feet on the ground and rolls them, her back hitting the futon seconds before he sprawls ungracefully across her chest. She hooks a leg behind his back, ignoring the fact that her yukata stays on the floor and she's basically naked now, and shows him what to do.

Then she lies back and waits.

His eyes are frantic, then pissed, then _glowing_, but finally he kicks off the cloak, braces himself on his arms (and wasn't _that_ a sight) and acts. His restraint _shatters_ and soon he's pounding into her hard enough to bring back the pain, and the hand he's moved to her shoulder to hold her in place is definitely going to leave bruises.

But she hardly notices all this, because he is crying.

Tears are streaming down his face, and he's practically choking as he sobs, and in between his gasps for air, he's saying her name over and over like some kind of chant.

With that much intensity, it doesn't take him long to finish, but the surprises aren't over because he proceeds to _fall asleep_ with his face buried between her breasts.

Kai hardly dares to breathe she's so taken aback by how completely he's dropped his guard. If she were an enemy ninja she could have killed him a dozen times in this encounter. The way he was now, she could kill him with her meager civilian skills. But she wasn't his enemy so she just abandons herself to the moment.

Their connection is so profound it borders on the divine. She told him her story and gave him her pain, and without words he somehow did the same. Kai had never and doubted she would ever be as close to another person ever again as she was to this stranger.

She doesn't have long to reflect, as he snaps awake in an instant and has a knife at her throat before she can finish blinking.

"What happened?" he asks hoarsely. Comprehension dawns in his eyes a moment later and the knife digs in a little deeper as he realizes how utterly he has compromised himself. "What did you do?"

"Nothing!" she protests…carefully, because the knife is still there. "It just happened. My heart and my spirit were breaking in this place, and I just wanted to be free. How was I supposed to know you felt the same way?"

He doesn't move for an eternity, but finally he settles back on his heels and pulls the knife back. She doesn't pretend this makes him any less dangerous.

"My companions intend to kill everyone in this building tonight," he says.

"What?" she asks, stupidly.

"We cannot afford to have our identities compromised. These women know our names, our faces, our whereabouts—and no doubt a hundred other things besides."

Like I know that you were on the verge of flying apart from loneliness and desperation and that horrible trapped feeling that she knew so well, she thinks. She doesn't say it, but she doesn't need to because he's thinking the same thing.

"Please don't kill me," she says, keeping her voice level and free of any pleading. "This—what happened here just now—please don't lessen it."

Then she waits.

He bows his head. "I seem to be making all manner of foolish decisions today," he says. He hands her the knife. "Go. Run."

She doesn't need to be told twice, and she fumbles with her damp and stained yukata, the blood still drying on her thighs and trickling down her neck. She pauses at the door.

"Could—would you tell me your name?"

"…Itachi."


	2. Chapter 2

_Part 2_

She doesn't run far, and three weeks living on the street and stealing food out of dumpsters is enough to convince her she was a stupid, whiny brat just like Mother always said. She's filthy, starving and sick, and the euphoria of having had such a once-in-a-lifetime experience is slowly buried under a more primitive desire for the creature comforts of her previous life.

Surely being sold as some lord's plaything was better than _this_.

She doesn't think about how her old world would only have ended in death, because right now a quick death is easier than the unceasing struggle of living.

She has just enough sense of self-preservation left to drag herself to a brothel on the other side of the city when the thoughts of the peace of death grow too strong.

She stands like a doll as the old owner feels her limbs and hair and checks her teeth, chuckling and muttering to herself the whole time. The old woman's skilled enough to see the potential under all that grime and illness, but canny enough to see her desperation and use it to make sure Kai never has a chance for an original thought ever again.

"What's your name, then?" the old woman asks.

"Sakura," Kai answers, because she fully intends to never share the only thing she has left from her parents with anyone ever again.

The woman knows she's lying but half the whores in the city call themselves Sakura and anyway it hardly matters.

Kai-Sakura doesn't flinch when a bony hand spreads her legs.

"Hmm, used _and_ compromised, that'll alter the terms of your contract, that it will," the woman says with a cackle.

Kai emerges from her apathetic fog long enough to tilt her head questioningly.

"I've been in this business before you were born, girl, and I know when a stupid slut's gone and got herself compromised!" She jabs Kai's shrunken stomach painfully with one of her gnarled fingers. "But don't you worry, dearie, I've got something to take care of that right quick. Now strip; we might as well do it when you're already filthy."

The woman disappears, and Kai feels a sliver of panic because she thinks she might be dying. Her breath sticks in her throat, and her mind races in panicked, fruitless circles. Her stomach is knotted in hunger and recent illness has left her with a lingering cough and a low-grade fever. She's had the occasional vomiting spell, but that was only to be expected with dirt, the cold, the trash, and the hundred other indignities of sleeping on the ground like a dog.

But.

Mother had dozens of concoctions to keep a girl from…getting compromised…but of course none of them were wasted on Kai, because she was being saved for a daimyo.

It only takes one time…

Kai traces her stomach with one hand, trying to sense a difference, while her other hand creeps up to her face and the strange expression there. For the first time in three weeks, she remembers the joy and the deep connection she found that night, and relives it.

She has no proof, but suddenly she's absolutely certain that she's pregnant, that three weeks ago two perfect strangers threw all their pain at each other and it somehow transformed into this new life.

She hears footsteps and her eyes harden, a determination there that she's never had before.

Before she wanted to be free, but not enough to fight for it. She was a child having a sulk.

But now someone's life depends on her and it's time to step up and seize control of her life instead of running from it. So it was hard; what did she expect?

Her baby needed her.

Kai drew the knife from its resting place at the base of her spine and walked out the door.

No one saw her.

She didn't look back.

* * *

Kai stays in the city another month. At first she can't decide where to go. She doesn't remember where she used to live or even her family name, and the brothel is a burned-out wreck.

Then one day she happens across a group of ninja with a symbol she recognizes and they give her a name: Konohagakure no Sato.

She can't give her baby a heritage or a father, but there has to be something worth passing on in a village that produced Itachi, who changed her life so profoundly in less than four days' acquaintance.

Konoha was weeks away on foot, and she didn't know shit about surviving in the wilderness, so she practices.

She tries hunting rats with her knife but they're too damn quick. It's not until a fit of frustration reveals that the knife could be—and probably was designed to be—thrown that she starts to make progress. It takes time before she hits anything, but she's highly motivated.

At last her fear of having the child alone on the road outweighs her fear of starving due to her inadequate hunting skills so she steals food and a blanket from the neighboring shops and she turns her face to Konoha.

"Halt!"

* * *

Kai freezes, holding her knife defensively while her free hand goes to protect her child. He—or she—is due any day now, and she's thrilled to see the Leaf Ninja, even if they're eyeing her suspiciously, hands on weapons.

It's a point of pride that they don't immediately back down on seeing that she's a pregnant woman alone in the wilderness. She's obviously a civilian, and absolutely filthy besides, but there are corded muscles in her arms and legs and she holds the knife like she's not afraid to use it, like she's used it before.

Which she has.

But in the end, she didn't come all this way to be killed in some pissing contest over her personal growth, so she lowers her knife.

"I'm looking for sanctuary," she says.

* * *

They haul her before some old guy in a funny hat, then into what is obviously a cell for a "friendly chat," but she's here because she needs a safe place to raise her child and she doesn't mean the village any harm, so eventually they let her go.

It helps that her water breaks right in the middle of the interrogation. It's totally worth ruining her last scraps of clothing to watch the three men guarding her run around in a panic.

And twelve agonizing hours later she's holding her daughter in her arms and everything is perfect.

* * *

The perfection lasts approximately fifteen seconds, when she realizes that Midoriko is entirely dependent on her for everything, and she has _no fucking clue_ what to do.

Hat-guy comes back—apparently his name is 'Hokage,' which she thinks is a bit weird—and goes on for about a thousand years on 'refugees' and 'social welfare' and 'the will of fire' but she does make out that he intends to _give_ her an apartment and food until she proves adept at some kind of work, and she's tempted to marry him or something, because the city had _nothing_ like this.

He offers to take her to her apartment personally, so she bundles Midoriko up in the sheet from her hospital bed, attempts to make her yukata look less like standard-issue hospital gear, and joins him by the door.

He raises an eyebrow, but doesn't say anything else.

She almost has a heart attack when she walks out the door and straight into Itachi.

Except, wait, this kid is too short, and the outfit's all wrong, but _damn_ do they look alike!

Hokage wins another billion points in her book when he assumes she was some kind of fangirl and starts explaining the entire history of the kid's—Sasuke's—clan: the Uchiha. A lot of it goes over her head, but she does understand that valuable things are things other people try to take away, and an Uchiha is a valuable thing.

She also hears about Itachi.

She's not quite sure whether she believes that he could kill his entire family like that, but when she remembers how fucked up he was sitting in the kitchen like a part of the furniture, and the heat of his tears on her face, she thinks she believes it but there's definitely more to this story.

Not that that really matters. Her child is in danger because of her blood. She needs to protect her.

She thanks Hokage, graciously accepts two secondhand kimono from some guy in a mask that appears out of nowhere, and enters her new apartment.

Oh. Apparently Hokage is some sort of title, not his name. Well, whatever.

* * *

Kai gives herself two days to rest, letting her body heal from her long journey and the arduous labor, and attempting to keep Midoriko clean and fed and happy.

A woman stops by to help her, bearing diapers and little outfits and loads of advice, for which Kai is eternally grateful. She prizes her newfound independence, but she's not _stupid_.

But after two days of indulgence, she ventures out to explore her new home, carrying a sleeping Midoriko.

She never lets her out of her sight.

The first thing she sees is a bunch of ninja sprinting about on rooftops. Her mouth falls open.

By the time she walks to the hospital (the only place she knows besides the cell) and back, rooftops are old news. She's skirted two duels with fireballs and tsunamis appearing from nowhere and some crazy person running backwards on his hands in _green spandex_.

She wonders whether Itachi can do these things, and her mind boggles trying to picture him in green spandex.

But, painful mental images aside, the solution to one of her problems is clear: these ninja, they have amazing abilities they use to protect their village, and she could use those same abilities to protect her daughter.

Now the only question was how one became a ninja…

* * *

It wasn't that easy of course, but finding herself on a difficult path isn't the insurmountable obstacle it was for Kai before Itachi and Midoriko.

She found the ninja academy, but a hard-faced man—a _chuunin_, she learned—informed her coldly that it was only for children, and definitely not for _outsiders_.

First she tracked down hand-walking-guy, whose name turned out to be Gai. He knew hundreds of exercises, and she simply followed him around for an hour or so taking notes to get her very first workout.

He wasn't dumb, just…enthusiastic, so he followed her the first few days she strapped Midoriko to her back and ran laps, or did pushups, or kicked trees. He eventually seemed satisfied that she wasn't a ninja in disguise and she really just wanted to learn to keep her family safe and stopped stalking her, which was welcome.

He still stopped by occasionally to correct her stance or show her how to wrap her hands when she practiced punches, which was even more welcome.

She first noticed it with Gai, since he was practically the only person she talked to besides Midoriko, but after awhile she noticed that all the ninja seemed fascinated by her baby. They were subtle about it (ninja) but she began to sense eyes on her whenever she left her apartment.

At first she thought they were looking down on her for having a baby and no husband, but soon enough the civilians showed her that people did that by loudly whispering 'whore' as she walked by.

No, ninja, who were constantly surrounded by death, took a collective delight in new life and once she realized this, it took her hours to get across the village because every ninja wanted to touch the baby or talk to the baby or attempt to feed the baby (regular food! idiots!) and she was happy to share her gift.

* * *

As a future concubine, she'd been taught to read and write, so Kai went to the Hokage and asked if she could help at the Academy. She didn't know the material, but she was a quick learner, and paper-grading was pretty much the same no matter the topic.

He gave her a look that said he knew exactly what she was doing, but that was fine so long as he still let her.

She did derive a great deal of satisfaction from the look on that stupid chuunin's face when she showed up the next day.

* * *

Days passed, then weeks, months, and finally years, as Midoriko grew and Kai settled comfortably into her new life. She trained everyday and enrolled Midoriko in the Academy the day of her fourth birthday, the absolute minimum age. Several people tried to explain to her that children without ninja parents seldom adjusted well to the rigors of ninja life at such a young age, but they shut up after the first few months. She was her father's daughter, but Kai also gave herself some credit for raising her well.

The girl looked enough like her father to give Kai more than one night of sleepless panic, but she eventually settled for keeping her hair so long it didn't dare stick up and teaching her to smile like a normal person.

It was surprisingly effective.

Kai sat down for an entire day once and tried to determine if she or Midoriko could be a part of Sasuke's life.

She couldn't think of anything that wouldn't be suspicious, plus putting the two next to each other would make the resemblance ridiculously obvious. So the kid never knew that he had more family, though with his feelings toward Itachi maybe he wouldn't want to know her anyway.

She kept up with his activities, which was easy since the entire village was obsessed with him, and she made a point to be part of the crowd at his graduation to genin, not that he knew or cared.

After all her years at the Academy she knew that the real danger would come from Midoriko developing the Sharingan, which would proclaim her heritage to any idiot with eyes. But in the end she couldn't risk handicapping her with only civilian skills, so she settled for insisting on assisting in Midoriko's class and keeping a close eye on her progress.

She wasn't a ninja and never would be, but she could practice taijutsu with the students and not get her ass kicked and could manage a few basic Ninjutsu. Her knife—kunai, she knew now—throwing skills were as good as any ninja's.

And Midoriko would be amazing, and that was the most important thing.

Kai was happy, she thought, and certainly not unhappy, though there was one rough moment at the Academy when Iruka offered to try and teach her some genjutsu basics.

He made some offhand comment about it being appropriate, which is when she finally learned the significance of her name to a ninja.

"Well," he'd said, "it's used to dispel illusions."

Oh.

She'd cried on the poor man's shoulder for about an hour and they never spoke of it again.

* * *

Two days after Midoriko's fifth birthday they went to watch Sasuke compete in the chuunin exams and got a front row seat to an invasion.

Kai and Midoriko fought over who should hide under the seat and who should guard until they interrupted by a creepy guy with white hair and glasses, who peers at them and mumbles to himself before snatching Midoriko and disappearing.

She's no match for his speed, but fortunately he doesn't go far, and Kai lands in the Hokage box only seconds behind the very-soon-to-be-dead-who-the-fuck-cares-what-his-name-is.

"Kabuto, you're in the way of the barrier."

Kai glares at the creepy…woman?

"Orochimaru-sama, I thought you should see this right away."

He holds up Midoriko by her hair, and Kai growls.

Kabuto and Orochimaru have some sort of coded conversation and Orochimaru grins in a deeply unsettling way. "Very well, take her with us."

"Excuse me, no one is taking my daughter anywhere," Kai announces, ignoring the fact that everyone around her is a jounin or an enemy (or the Hokage) and she is so outclassed it's ridiculous.

Kabuto gives her a condescending smirk and starts what is sure to be an incredibly boring speech, but she starts moving the moment his lips curl up and she manages to grab Midoriko through a combination of sheer luck and the fact that he'd never expected her to actually do something.

Everything around her explodes into battle, but there aren't enough Leaf Ninja nearby and she's facing Kabuto as her opponent. Their fight lasts almost three minutes and she's secure enough to admit that that's entirely because he's a sadistic asshole who likes to torture his prey.

The fifth time she stands up, awkward because one leg is totally shattered, dripping blood and unable to even lift her hands to defend herself, he finally seems to lose interest in toying with her.

"Why won't you just die?" he asks.

She coughs up blood. "I will never let you have my daughter. As long as you pursue her, I will stand between you and her."

"I think not," he sneers, and leaps forward.

Kai can't force her arms to move, so she does the only thing she can and drops to her knees, drawing Midoriko to her chest and shielding her with her body. Midoriko is crying, and she tries to say something comforting, though her head is a bit fuzzy and she's not quite sure she manages.

Determined to confront her death head on, Kai doesn't look away from Kabuto's advance, but when she's close enough to touch his leg her vision is suddenly engulfed in darkness.

For a brief, terrible moment she's afraid that she's died of blood loss without ever managing to shield her precious child, but then the darkness resolves itself into a black cloak with red clouds.

"Itachi," she breathes.

Everyone stops fighting, even Orochimaru and the Hokage and some giant blue dude with a massive sword who apparently dropped by to spectate. Or, judging by the cloak, was following Itachi.

"Back off," Itachi says, glaring at Kabuto. No one wins staring contests with Itachi, and Kabuto backs off.

"Kisame, take the girl," Itachi orders.

"Both girls go, or neither girl goes," Kai interjects, pretending not to notice the looks of betrayal she's getting from various Leaf Ninja. It's easy because she doesn't actually deserve them.

"…fine," Itachi says, which isn't really an answer, except apparently it is because Kai finds herself slung over Kisame's shoulder, Midoriko beside her, and then the world blurs as he sprints for the trees.

"Um," Kai says. "Wave bye to daddy, Midoriko."

Kisame snorts.

* * *

So Kai starts her life over again, this time in a small hut in the absolute middle of nowhere. The two Akatsuki members help her plant a garden and she shows them that she knows some basic traps for hunting game.

"Go play with Kisame," Kai tells her daughter the third day.

She turns to Itachi, ignores his impassive expression and pulls him into her room by his collar.

"I don't think—" he starts.

"Shut up," she says. "I mean this in the nicest possible way, but you've destroyed my life twice now and I really don't care what stupid shit you're about to say."

She kisses him, and after a moment he kisses her back. She kicks the door shut.

Itachi and Kisame leave the next day, and Midoriko and Kai are alone for many years.

* * *

One day, Midoriko sees someone approaching.

"Mom, Mom!" she calls, grabbing her weapons and running to meet the stranger. After all, she is the more powerful ninja.

It's unnecessary, though, because the someone is Itachi. They all three meet about half a mile from the hut and just stand and look at each other for a long time.

"How have you been?" Midoriko asks finally.

"I died," he says.

"Oh."

Silence.

"Are you done, with whatever it was that you had to do?" Kai asks.

He hesitates, then nods.

"Well, come in then."

* * *

They're a strange family, but somehow they make it work. And maybe someday they'll return to the outside world and try to reconnect, but for now, this is enough.


End file.
